Did Paul miss the point of the gospel? He spent so much time in Romans setting forth doctrinally why we need the gospel, what the gospel is, how it is the power of God for salvation to all that believe, and why it is absolutely necessary for eternity. So, did he overdo it by such doctrinal precision?
The reason I ask is due to a lecture by John Killinger, executive minister and resident theologian at Marble Collegiate Church in New York City. This week he spoke for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s annual meeting in Memphis at the Cook Convention Center. Killinger questioned whether we should consider Jesus Christ “as the incarnate God in our midst.” He further stated, “…doctrine is a thing of the past now religiously,” a view that leads him to a different understanding of salvation than set forth by Paul in the book of Romans or by John in his Gospel. Killinger asserted that Jesus did not think of Himself as Savior of the world. To him, salvation has nothing to do with God’s righteousness, eternal justice, propitiatory sacrifice, or justification but rather with self-fulfillment and love [“CBF Presenter Questions Christ’s Deity,” by David Roach, www.bpnews.net, 6/19/2008].
Quite obviously, John Killinger’s teaching has nothing in common with Holy Scripture. Though he considers his view a “more advanced understanding” of the gospel, it really is no gospel—no good news—at all. If my sin continues to stand between God and me, if the curse of the Law has not been removed from my soul and if eternal justice has not been met by a substitute, so what if I’ve achieved self-fulfillment when I face eternal hell?
Thank God for the gospel of Jesus Christ! It’s not a gospel that we initiate or that Paul dreamed up; it’s God’s own good news for sinners. Every detail was carefully laid out before Creation. At the center of God’s plan was the issue of His character. How could a just God forgive and declare righteous the unrighteous? How do love and justice correspond in the salvation of sinners?
The cross of Christ declares God to be just in saving sinners. We minimize the cross if we fail to see the justice of God displayed in it. So, let’s think about this as we consider the text before us. I will approach the passage using three questions: (1) how does the cross demonstrate God’s righteousness? (2) How does the cross affect all humanity? (3) Why is public demonstration necessary in God’s saving work?
Righteousness is the optimum term in the book of Romans. It carries differing shades of meaning according to the context. In verse 22, “the righteousness of God” refers to God’s righteousness in declaring sinners righteous. In other words, the phrase capsules the gospel and the entire work of Christ. But in verse 25, Paul uses it differently. “His righteousness” distinguishes from the rest of creation the righteous character of God, His perfect rightness as an eternal attribute.
The reason that the Apostle brings up “His righteousness” in the context of explaining the declaration of righteousness by God is that salvation apart from the works of the Law seems to be unjust. How can God actually declare a sinner to be righteous? How can He maintain His own righteous character by doing something that seems so contrary to His character?
Paul explains that what Jesus did on the cross “demonstrate[s] His righteousness.” The word means to show or to prove. The cross proved something vital concerning God! But he has something even more specific in mind: “because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.” How can God call Himself righteous if he did not execute justice against all of the sinners in the Old Testament that He claimed as His people? Jacob was a cheat, David was an adulterer, and Samson was a womanizer—how could God claim them as His own? How could God actually consider them as part of His family if their sin had not been sufficiently dealt with?
God is righteous; so He never lets sin slide. He never acts sentimental toward the elect and says, ‘I know I should punish your sin but I just cannot bring Myself to do it. I think that I’ll just let your sins and rebellion slide. Because I love you so much, I’ll just turn the other way when you sin and act as though I don’t see it.’
Such considerations are ridiculous and yet without the cross that’s what you have to rely on—some kind of ridiculous caricature of God rather than the righteousness of God. Or you have to begin to cut out or reinterpret portions of the Bible (and big portions) that deal with your sin, God’s wrath, and Christ’s atoning death.
The cross demonstrates the high cost of forgiveness of sins and the way of righteousness. Apart from Christ as our substitute in the face of God’s eternal wrath then we have nothing to bear our sin away. Apart from Christ fulfilling the law on our behalf, and imputing His righteousness to us then we have no righteousness to face God.
But he’s referring to something quite specific when he speaks of an action to “demonstrate His righteousness.” It’s what he’s stated earlier in the same verse: “whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.” The “whom” refers to Jesus Christ; the public display refers to the cross; and the “propitiation in His blood” gets to the heart of what Jesus was doing on the cross. No accident took place to put Him there. God did it! It was God that publicly displayed His Son at the cross. We must not miss the emphasis in the text on God initiating the crucifixion of His Son in order to propitiate Himself with reference to our sins.
We considered in our previous study that propitiation means an act of satisfaction whereby God’s wrath is averted from its intended target to another. In our case, the wrath of God aimed at us, and deservedly so, was shifted to God’s own Son at the cross. Christ’s act of bearing our sins in His own body satisfied God’s call for eternal justice so that He turned away from us in wrath and instead, received us as His children.
Propitiation had much precedent in the ancient world. Greek gods could become terribly angry toward their devotees. So, the worshipers, in order to avert the gods’ wrath, would seek to propitiate them by burning incense or offering sacrifices or giving money. It was the worshipers that did the propitiating toward their gods.
But the gospel is totally different. We don’t propitiate God. God propitiates Himself through His Son’s bloody death at the cross. In other words, the full measure of wrath due to us, Jesus Christ absorbed on our behalf at the cross. Therefore, there’s no more wrath due! All of God’s justice toward us has been fully satisfied by Christ.
One of the clearest pictures of propitiation is found in the yearly Day of Atonement in the tabernacle and later the temple. On that day, the high priest, with fear and trembling, would enter into the holy of holies, a place where no one else could go. He entered with a basin of blood from a young goat that had just been slain on behalf of the people of Israel. The priest laid his hands on the goat before killing it, signifying the transfer of his guilt and the guilt of the people to the goat. He took the blood and a branch of hyssop into the holy of holies, and then began to dip the hyssop into the basin and sprinkle the mercy seat with the blood. The mercy seat was the place of atonement—a golden lid that covered the Ark of the Covenant containing the commandments that cried out for justice. As the blood covered the mercy seat, God accepted the bloody death of the goat in the place of the people of Israel. His wrath propitiated, the people were now accepted as righteous before Him; but only for a year.
When the translators of the Septuagint sought a word to translate the Hebrew “mercy seat” into Greek, they used the same word we find in our text: hilasmos or propitiation. At the point of the offering by the bloody death of the substitute, God was propitiated and wrath averted to the substitute.
But that was only a foreshadowing of what was to come. Each Day of Atonement served as a token of God’s perfect Substitute in His Son at the cross. The blood of bulls and goats can never take away sin (Heb. 10:4). God did not forgive and justify them because of a goat’s death for them. He forgave them only because of the death of His Son.
Paul wants us to see that Old Testament saints were not saved by the blood of bulls and goats. Those sacrifices were temporary—demonstrated by their repetition year after year. Christ died once for all (Heb. 10:10). But what of the sins of those before Christ’s death. How were they forgiven? The same way that you and I are forgiven.
That’s the point made in verse 25: “because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.” God showed restraint or “forbearance” in not exercising His just wrath against everyone prior to Christ’s death—even those that He had elected before the foundation of the world. Election does not equal justification. Instead, election presupposes that God would be propitiated, His wrath averted, and sins forgiven. But election doesn’t make that happen. God who does the electing makes it happen out of the richness of His grace.
When God “passed over the sins previously committed,” He postponed His wrath until that time that it would be fulfilled by the bloody death of the Incarnate Son at the cross. He planned it and He executed it so that all of the believers in the Old Testament era might truly be eternally saved. That’s why they were not saved by their sacrifices or rituals. They were saved by Christ. They looked to Christ through the means that God had given them and were saved by Christ, not by the blood of bulls and goats. That’s what the writer of Hebrews explains as well in 9:15 in concurrence with our text:
For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
Philip Hughes explained, “The efficacy of this redemption, moreover, extends not only to those who have lived since the advent of Christ but also, retroactively, to those who trusted the promises prior to their fulfillment in his coming…The perfection that is ours in Christ is theirs also” [A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 367].
So Paul insists that we understand that there were not multiple ways given by God as the way to righteousness. There was not an Old Testament way and then a New Testament way. There’s only one way to righteousness—through Jesus Christ as our Mediator and Substitute before God. The cross gave a public demonstration of this. Think of the endless line of bulls, lambs, and goats offered by the thousands and tens of thousands to atone for sin. But the value of those animals, even all of them combined, could not equal to even one eternal soul. They lacked the intrinsic value and worth to adequately stand as substitutes for those seeking forgiveness. They represented the one final Substitute at the cross. Each bloody sacrificial death pointed to the cross. Each gave a reminder of the high price of eternal redemption. Each demonstrated that God must be propitiated if He would turn to us in favor rather than in wrath. Each showed that justice must be satisfied for acceptance with God.
Just imagine that you are in a courtroom where a murder trial takes place. The jury renders a guilty verdict and condemns the accused to death by lethal injection. Would justice be served if a goat was offered in the place of the murderer? Would that goat carry enough intrinsic value to satisfy justice in light of the offense? I think not. Outrage would ensue.
Now, frankly, no one objected to the animal sacrifices. Why was that the case? Because it was either me or that animal as my substitute! No doubt, multitudes were glad for the animal sacrifices. But the reality is that the animal sacrifices had only limited value: they served for the time as a reminder that God would one day render eternal justice for those that believed in His provision of righteousness.
Through the bloody, redemptive, substitutionary, and propitiatory death of Christ, forgiveness is provided, wrath is averted, righteousness imputed, and sinners accepted as children of the King. The cross calls our attention away from the vain attempts to appease a holy God with empty platitudes and flawed works. The cross calls us to look to Him and live who was lifted up in our place to die.
The cross allows for no other way of redemption, no other way to acceptance and forgiveness before God. It’s through that one person—Jesus Christ, that one event—His death on our behalf, and that one atoning sacrifice—the bloody death of the Incarnate Son, that God was eternally satisfied and therefore could declare sinners who have faith in Christ to be justified.
Do you see what this shouts at us from another angle? While the cross shouts justification and forgiveness of sins, it also shouts the reality of judgment. If God would send His Son to the cross as the only means to forgive those elected to be His own before the foundation of the world, then how certain and how horrible is God’s judgment? If salvation cost that much, if God would burn with eternal rage toward His eternally beloved Son as He became sin for us, then how can any of us think lightly of judgment?
God can be rightly questioned as to why and how He can forgive sinners who have so greatly offended Him. The Scripture leaves no question as to the justice of God. After replacing the tablets of stone that Moses had earlier shattered in anger toward Israel’s rebellion against God, the Lord passed in front of Moses, revealing Himself. In that divine self-disclosure, the Lord assured Moses that “He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished” (Ex. 34:7). Forty years later, as the second generation out of Egypt prepared to cross into the Promised Land, God warned that He “repays those who hate Him to their faces, to destroy them; He will not delay with him who hates Him, He will repay him to his face” (Deut. 7:10). There is no slackness on God’s part in recognizing sin or dealing with it. Every sin against Him is a criminal act against His Law and eternal government. Sin is treason against the divine rule. Eternal justice demands action on the part of the Sovereign Lord to measure out the appropriate punishment commensurate with the crime.
So we face the quandary. God reveals Himself as “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth” (Ex. 34:6). We’re thankful for such attributes in the Sovereign that we’ve offended and rebelled against. Yet the righteousness of His rule will not allow any sin to be overlooked. As a just God, He must apply justice in every situation where sin and rebellion exists.
With that as background, consider how Paul answers the question concerning the public demonstration of God’s saving work. “He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Follow what the Apostle has set forth. Consider the somewhat motley bunch that went into Egypt. There were lots of sins among them. Look at their descendants—more sin. Yet the Lord accepted all that believed. Justice demanded that their sin be punished. Bulls and goats and lambs were offered to atone for their sin. But as we’ve noted already, in spite of their numbers and repetition, none had the value necessary to truly bear away their guilt forever. God “passed over the sins previously committed,” that is, He restrained His just judgment for a time in anticipation of the cross of Christ.
Now we come to the cross—that’s what Paul means by the phrase, “of His righteousness at the present time.” It’s maybe better translated, though somewhat cumbersome, “for the demonstration of His righteousness in the present event.” “Time” is not a reference to chronological time but rather to a particular event or particular period of significance. In all the centuries before, the blood of bulls and goats were offered in anticipation of “the present time”—of the event when God would bring the shadows to an end with the full substance in Christ. The cross, in God’s economy, is the focal point of history. Everything prior to the cross of Christ, moves to the cross. Everything since Christ’s death moves from the cross to the final redemption in Christ’s return. All human history pivots at the cross. God was “just” in forgiving the Old Testament believers because of the eternal justice satisfied at the cross.
God must be recognized as just before He can be relied upon as the justifier of sinners. How can someone in Central Asia or Africa or South America trust God to forgive if there is no basis for forgiveness? Our missionary work is worthless unless the promise of forgiveness and righteousness has a foundation in eternal justice. That’s why Paul, quite excitedly, I think, declares that the work of Christ on the cross demonstrates God’s righteousness—or justice, in order that God may be seen as just or adhering to the eternal justice of His character and rule—and that He might justify those having faith in Christ. He can be relied upon to save sinners! He left no stone of eternal justice unturned when it comes to justifying those that call upon Christ to be saved.
It’s only in the public demonstration of the cross that faith makes sense. The Jews that waited anxiously as the high priest entered the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement could not watch what took place inside that secret place. They understood that if the priest died while offering the atoning sacrifice that God had not accepted the sacrifice and consequently, their guilt remained. They came to rely upon God accepting that yearly sacrifice so that their guilt might be taken away and they might be accepted by God. They stood and waited until the act of propitiation took place. That became the foundation for their faith in God’s provision of forgiveness. The priest visibly exiting from before the mercy seat made their faith sensible.
The cross of Christ takes this up to an even greater level. Our Lord publicly died, even as a spectacle before those in Jerusalem. Roman soldiers, religious leaders, common people, and a lone apostle watched as the Son of God became sin for us, absorbing the wrath of God, and viscerally demonstrating this in His cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” When Christ had suffered with the sufficiency necessary to redeem all of those that would believe in Him, He declared, “It is finished!” and in that moment, finished that work of eternal justice in His death.
Faith looks at Christ and this work. This divine demonstration is for “the one who has faith in Jesus.” Faith does not add to this work. Faith relies on this work of Christ. Without the public demonstration of divine justice at the cross then one might construe faith as making some contribution to justification. But the cross eliminates any thought or consideration that faith adds to justification. Faith cannot contribute when the work is finished!
As we’ve noted so often, the gospel calls for a narrow, specific faith. It’s “faith in Jesus.” It’s not faith in oneself to do the right thing or faith in faith or faith in one’s religion or faith in a creed or faith in a church. As the hymn writer expressed it,
My faith has found a resting place—
Not in device or creed:
I trust the Ever living One—
His wounds for me shall plead (“My Faith Has Found a Resting Place,” Lidie Edmunds).
“Faith in Jesus” looks to Jesus as Son of God having offered Himself finally and fully to satisfy eternal justice at the cross. Faith relies on the infinite value of Christ and His sacrifice as the ground of acceptance before God. Faith does not trust the arm of the flesh for righteousness but relies upon the righteousness of Christ imputed to the one that believes. Faith does not boast in itself but boasts only in the justifying work of Christ.
So, has your faith found a resting place in Jesus Christ alone? Without the cross of Christ, God would not be just in forgiving sinners; and therefore, God could not forgive apart from the sacrifice of His Son. God has accepted Christ’s death as full payment for the penalty of our sin. Full payment! Nothing more can be added. Christ has done the work. Receive what He has done by faith—look to Christ and no longer stand guilty and condemned before God. Look to Christ and receive pardon, forgiveness, and righteousness.
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